CAUSE Oxnard Organizer Diana Marin and community leader Martin Isaac will join a delegation of representatives from California to Las Vegas for President Obama’s announcement of his plans for comprehensive immigration reform.

She will be live tweeting from @CAUSE_NOW and updating the CAUSE Facebook page with reactions to the speech. Martin is part of the Ventura County committee of the Central Coast Comprehensive Immigration Reform Taskforce launched last week to work towards reform.

The California delegation of organizations includes the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, the Central American Resource Center of Los Angeles, the Silicon Valley Alliance for Immigration Reform, the North Bay Organizing Project and el Consejo de Federaciones Mexicanas en Norteamerica

CAUSE staff will be available for comment on the immigration reform package after the announcement. Below are immigration statistics for Ventura and Santa Barbara Counties and the Central Coast Comprehensive Immigration Reform Taskforce description and initial Guiding Principles.

Immigration Statistics for Ventura and Santa Barbara Counties

We are a community of immigrants. Immigrants make up more than one out of five residents in Santa Barbara and Ventura Counties.

• According to the 2011 American Community Survey, in Ventura County there are 182,987 immigrants or 22% of the population. For Santa Barbara County there are 103,038 immigrants or 24% of the population.

Comprehensive Immigration Reform would ease the fear of families being separated because of their immigration status.

• CAUSE estimates there are over 71,000 undocumented people in Ventura County and just over 39,000 in Santa Barbara County.

The Central Coast Comprehensive Immigration Reform Taskforce is an alliance of diverse organizations that believe in a comprehensive immigration reform. We believe that the increasingly militarized border enforcement has led to the death of thousands of people and does not provide long-term solution to the push and pull factors which bring immigrants to our nation, even without a lawful process to do so. We also believe that farm workers are of particular concern to us as they are vital to the local and national economy and face particular issues related to their immigration status.

Principles of the Taskforce

1. We recognize immigrants’ full humanity and seek immigration laws which protect the human and civil rights of immigrants. We seek an end to the criminalization of immigrants.

Comments

I just want to understand the goal here: This means anybody can come from any country in the world and come to the U.S? No limitations on the number of people who can come here and the type of person who can move here?